Troubled Waters
by Pineapple's Fidelity
Summary: oneshot - you can't kill fear. especially if you don't know it's there.


Fear could not be killed.

It could be denied, constantly and insistently, until your entire being held denial and disbelief against the existence of the fear. But denial, conscious or not, did not make the fear go away. Neither did it bury it too far to be found. More like an optical illusion, denial changed the perception of the fear. So, as long as one did not look to close, one could deceive themselves into not seeing it.

Denial, conscious or not, did not kill fear. It only made it fester and grow. For, after all, how could you fight what you didn't know was there?

Jack feared water, unfrozen water specifically, though he hardly knew it.

He knew he much preferred to be sheltered and away from the patter of rain. He didn't know why, though he assumed it was because water caused snow and ice to melt.

_The sky cracks and Jack flinches. He's too late, too far and it's already raining. Rain pours in a rapid downpour pelting Jack with little needles. _

_It doesn't strike him down with cold for he is far, far colder than the rain could ever be. Nor does it hurt him with the velocity it collides into him with for he so, so numb. _

_Jack doesn't know why but he tumbles from the sky._

He knew he didn't much care for running water either.

_He's flying. And that's all there is. Just Jack and Wind and the sky they dance in. _

_Jack is unaware of where he flies. He's unaware of a lot of things. It doesn't matter. All that matters is the pure exhilaration of leaving the Earth behind and taking on Wind's challenging game of twists, turns, falls and climbs. All that matters Wind's gentle nudges guiding him into another heart pounding drop or spinning him about in a mini tornado to throw him off-balance. He startles badly when the sound crashes against his ears with all the subtlety of a breaking glass._

_Jack whips around breaking from his current free fall. Wind twirls on, curling in on itself at the loss of its passenger. Jack hears the whipping cry of disappointment but ignores it and continues on. Flighty in its nature and never one to lament, Wind moves on as well. In its absence, Jack follows the sound that grates against him. _

_He doesn't know why he continues on if it bothers him so but he does. He also doesn't know why when he comes upon the rushing, crashing river, the source of the sound, he freezes it into solid silence with a sudden flare of agitation. _

_He doesn't know why he feels so safe in the silence, either._

Jack didn't know a lot of things. He didn't know there had been someone before Jack Frost. He didn't know Pitch yet, later, Pitch seems to know him. He didn't know he existed untouchable and invisible to all, except to precious few and they did not want him, because no one believed him. Later Jack doesn't know why no one _will_ believe. He didn't know North looked at him like he could _be_ something because no one had done so before. He didn't know why the moon refused him a sign. Jack didn't know he cared for the Guardians, not until he lost them. He didn't know he feared water.

_When Jack awakes abruptly in the night his hands do not shake and his heart does not hammer. When he awakes he is not on the verge of laughter. There is nothing. Not even the vestiges of a dream. His hands are stiff and his body tense. His heart does not beat and his lungs do not breathe. He is still and cold as fallen snow. _

_As death. _

_The taste of muddy water lingers on his tongue. _

_He doesn't know why. He doesn't think he ever will._

"Oh? What is this…trying to hide something, Jack?"

Jack fell out of the contorting shadows onto solid ground again. His staff clattered down next to him. Jack snatched it up as he shakily got to his feet. His body still thrummed with the freshly awakened fear of never being accepted. Of never being a true part of the world. A buzzing resonated just out of hearing.

"Hide…what?" gasped Jack, unsteady.

Pitch laughed a laugh of wicked humor.

Jack gripped his staff as he whipped it around. He caught nothing but air. Jack felt his skin crawl. Pitch's voice had sounded so close, almost right behind him, yet there was nothing. Jack gritted his teeth. His grip became so hard he wondered if his mimicry of a shepherd's crook would break.

Taking a breath to calm his nerves, Jack moved cautiously forward.

"What am I hiding?" questioned Jack again. He did not particularly care to know what the Nightmare spirit thought but it would help to pin the location of the elusive spirit.

Pitch laughed again and Jack spun around catching a trace shadow.

"Why, your _fear_ of course."

Jack turned in a slow circle eyes snapping to every small movement of shadow. A faint sensation, like an after image, of a wildly beating heart caused Jack to feel slightly dizzy and light headed. If Jack had still needed breath it would've quickened.

"I thought," said Jack slowly shifting to look one direction where exceptionally dark shadow stood out. "We already discussed that." The shadow disappeared. It was one moment then wasn't the next. Jack turned back the way he came.

"Oh, but not _this_ one," replies Pitch with acute relish. This time Pitch's voiced echoed from everywhere and nowhere.

Jack tracked backward glancing around almost frantically. Jack himself did not know of what Pitch spoke but something, some part inside, did. It registered in his trembling fingers and painfully dry throat.

"What one?"

Jack whipped around sure he had felt hot air on his neck, the exhalation of a breath. Confused and shaken Jack never thought to look down. Instead, he focused on the out and away. His eyes flickered to and fro. He strained his ears to hear over the nagging buzzing. His staff glowed.

Jack's senses were stretched so thin that when the psychedelic shifting of dark and buzzing ceased Jack was dumbstruck. The silence and suddenly plain walls of Pitch's hideout conveyed across to Jack's mind a moment later. It was then Jack realized Pitch was behind him. The winter spirit went rigid.

"This one," said Pitch.

Simple, plain, with no inflection. Yet somehow far more terrifying than if Pitch had hissed or shouted it.

The shadows opened beneath Jack's feet and he—

—_falls so fast that the panic is slow to reach him through the shock. When it does, he thrashes uselessly. He doesn't know how to swim and his limbs cannot coordinate or find a pattern. He still tries. Because his lungs are burning and he needs air and he wants to live. He wants to live, oh God, he wants to livehewantstoliveandthere'sno—_

—air. Jack panicked and thrashed in the never-ending black surrounding him. The black moved with him. It sucked all the energy away from him making Jack's movements useless.

The anxiety rose, building in the back of Jack's throat. He tried to fight it. He rationalized that he didn't need to breathe anymore. The black was obviously the shadows of Pitch and, while they could terrorize and confuse, they couldn't actually hurt him. Nothing happened and the terror only grew inside him with a tingle of—

—_soul searing cold seeps into him. Inexorably it marches down into his bones—nononono—numbing and slowing his movements. The sharp burn of icy water replaces the burn of stale air in his lungs. And he's choking and he's going to—nononono—die because it's getting harder to—_

—move but Jack caught sight of a light and he manages to push down the sense of doom—_nononono—_and irrational fear. Because he's—_dyingdyingdying—_not going to die. He doesn't need—_he's suffocating—_to breathe. It's—_so cold he can't feel anything but the __**fear**_—not cold. If it is, it doesn't matter because he's colder than anything. And because Jack knew that if he made it to the pale lighteverything would be okay.

Jack didn't move in the—_water_—darkness but nonetheless drifted toward the light. Drawn in a way he doesn't understand. His fingertips brushed the "edge" of the light. Triumph flooded through him.

—_He's sinks away from the light. He knows he will never reach it. He knows he's going to die—dying. He doesn't want to die. But there is no air. His limbs will not move. He is stiff and he is sinking and he cannot move. He stares and wills the light, the moon, to come closer. It doesn't. He sinks deeper into the dark muddy water. He cannot breathe. There is no air. His is heart isn't beating. There's a dull silence in his head. He sinks. The water darkens. And all he can do is stare.—_

Something snaked around Jack's ankle and snatched him away from the light. It pulled him down and down and farther still. Jack cried out in surprise and brief fear. The unneeded air in his lungs was replaced with freezing…_water._ The darkness was water.

Jack panicked for real this time. Not in a strange, after the fact, déjà vu. He flailed and writhed and struck out at what held him. He couldn't see it in the darkness, the dark, cold darkness. He couldn't hit it, either. It stopped pulling but did not let go. Jack was stuck striving forward but going nowhere. Not up or down. Just there. Away from the light that was so far out of reach.

The dark water—how did he _get_ here?—filled his lungs. It weighed heavily against Jack, pushing outside in and inside out. The cold of the dark water seeped in, freezing, chilling. It should not have mattered. He did not need to breathe. His heart did not beat. His skin was more chilled than any water. Jack still choked. He still felt the stutter of a stilling heartbeat. The cold stole away the ability to move. Jack did not know why or how but he had drowned (was drowning. Because he could still make it. He couldn't die, much less drown. And none of this was _real_).

Terror ate at Jack nonetheless and all he could do was stare.

"_You'll never reach it," _whispered a voice.

Jack knew what the light was now. His eyelids fluttered in sudden understanding. The light was the moon. It was understanding, acceptance, belief, a place in the world. Everything he wanted. Everything he feared he'd never have.

"_Never."_

Never.

No.

NO!

He couldn't! Not after he'd gone so far!

Jack reached into himself searching for resolve and will. He wouldn't be stuck in the water _refused _to be!

In response to his pull something burned in Jack's belly before spreading throughout his body. The rush of power scorched through him, invigorating him. Jerking his limbs viciously Jack broke free from what held him. Something hissed, laughed, or shouted in outrage, maybe it did all three at once. Jack barely heard, too focused on the moon.

Jack didn't know how to swim but he kicked his legs and flailed his arms anyway. Somehow, the disjointed movements worked his desperation and will to fight overcoming his lack of knowledge. Jack touched the light and fell out of the shadows.

Jack yelped in surprise then pain when his shoulder took the brunt of the impact upon a strangely familiar tunnel floor. He clutched at it, groaning. His groaning broke off into a phantom coughing fit. His body still believed he had drowned. But nothing came out.

_An illusion_, thought Jack. _A freaking good one, too._

He fell to his side and just breathed for a moment. It was unneeded but it helped Jack rid the terrifying sensations of drowning.

_So real._

Jack sighed and closed his eyes. He needed to just gather himself before actually doing anything.

_It's kind of quiet,_ he thought. Then his eyes snapped open.

Before one could blink Jack sprung to his feet and rushed at the carved stone door that the shadows had dropped him by.

"Baby Tooth!" he cried banging his fists once or twice against the stone.

There was no reply.

Jack slumped against the door. The tooth container in his sweatshirt pocket knocked against him. Noticing it for the first time since his tumultuous trip in Pitch's shadows had begun Jack drew it out. The golden cylinder gleamed silently. A brown-haired boy grinned out happily from one end. Jack stared at it solemnly fingering the roughened edges of the casing. He had lost Baby Tooth for a bunch of old teeth. Shame made Jack bow his head and screw his eyes such. His hand clenched the cylinder tightly in guilt.

A trade had been made and Jack wasn't quite sure it'd been worth it.

_Later, when Jack is encouraged by Baby Tooth and finally gets the courage to look at his memory , Jack laughs in a morbid sort of way that makes Baby Tooth worry. He tells her not to but she pesters him until, finally, he, sort of, relents. He grins a happy and elated grin that is not quite faked (Because he feels those as well. After all, he's found himself.) but isn't completely true. _

_Jack says, "It's just so _funny._" Because Jack Frost is not afraid of the water but Jack Overland always will be._

_It's not really an answer at all but Baby Tooth presses no further._

* * *

**Author's Note: **If this seems to have no purpose that's because my train of thought derailed. Not even sure if you can consider this a complete thought but whatever. Expect more Rise of the Guardians insight/expansion one-shots for all the characters. When the movie comes out. I prefer to be as close to the original script as possible when I use actual pieces of the movie.

Also rated T for alluded death.

Critques/tips always welcome. Thanks!


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